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Monthly Archives: July 2014

The ongoing and apparently not-close-to-ending border crisis allows once again the public discussion of immigration, illegals, amnesty… in other words a bunch of issues that the country is in near permanent deadlock about. Although some of my friends on the right think this border rush of streams of children and mothers from Central America is all part of some clever Obama scheme, it seems to me to be the dumbest clever scheme ever. If Obama’s intention was to use this crisis to pass “comprehensive immigration reform;” a code word for amnesty, he’s just screwed the pooch.

Gallup shows that the support for immigration in general has tanked since the beginning of the border crisis.

And Rasmussen shows that “59% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the primary focus of any new immigration legislation passed by Congress should be to send the young illegal immigrants back home as quickly as possible. Just 27% say it should focus instead on making it easier for these illegal immigrants to remain in the United States.”

That makes me think there is a big gulf between what the American people think about immigration and what its elected officials think. The problem is, it’s sometimes hard to tell what our political leaders think. Pelosi’s comments when she visited the border patrol facility in Brownsville, Texas sounded incoherent.

“I wish I could take all those children home with me…”

“We’re all Americans in this hemisphere, North and South America.”

Eh, what does that mean in terms of policy? Does she support letting all of the children stay, regardless of the circumstances? Is she planning to adopt them all? Or does she mean everyone in the Western Hemisphere should be allowed to enter the United States? It sounds like a jumble of nonsense but the rest of the Democratic leadership is just as bad. Breitbart collected a list of the ramblings. See if you can pick out a policy here:

“House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) claimed America already has “extensive border security” while Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said the well-being of the illegal immigrant children “must be our first priority.”

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) insisted that amnesty legislation would “raise wages” even though the Congressional Budget Office determined that the influx of more foreign workers would lower the wages of American workers.“

If our political leaders are this stupid, one can only imagine how stupid the internet is on this issue. I decided to collect the biggest reasons given for amnesty by left leaning folks on one of my political forums:

Americans are basically illegal aliens too and since we have no right to be here, we’ve no right to keep anyone else out.

Immigration laws are basically unenforceable so don’t even bother.

Border Control is too expensive. (I was shocked! It was the first time I’ve heard anyone on the left concerned with how to pay for something.)

Opposition to illegal immigration is based on racism.

And related, to reduce the percentage of Whites in the United States.

The US has destroyed almost every country so people have no choice but to come here.

Compare the positions of these Yo Yos with our actual elected leaders. There isn’t that big a difference, although the internet nuts are more direct, but it does give you, if you sift long enough, an actual position for Democrats on immigration.

Democrats seem to have an unspoken support for a form of Wet Foot/Dry Foot policy. That policy, which we apply to Cuba under the Cuban Adjustment Act, allows Cubans who arrive in the United States to stay and apply for permanent residence. However it doesn’t apply if Cubans are intercepted at sea. So if a Cuban can get to the US, it’s like touching safe in a game of freeze tag. They made it. Democrats in policy and action sound like they want to apply that policy to every country in the world, not just Cuba. They have not said it, yet, but it’s the most logical conclusion to their mish mash of statements.

I just drove back from vacation and boy are my…wheels tired. OK admittedly that’s not exactly a keeper, but hey, I’ve been on vacation. But even on vacation, the learning never stops, so I’ve come across a few articles that I thought were insightful enough to pass on.

First up: ‘Revisiting Snowden’s Hong Kong Getaway’ in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah I know it’s behind a pay wall but just Google the article title. Sshh! Don’t tell The Wall Street Journal this is their secret back door!

Although I try to keep up with the Snowden story, this had some tidbits I wasn’t aware of, such as Snowden vanishing from the time he arrived in Hong Kong on May 20th to the 31st of May. Where was he? There are no records of hotel or credit charges during those dates. Mysterious…

Jonah Goldberg has a G File that is a testament to how good a writer he is when he can plug something worthwhile into an article that’s meant to be a throw away email newsletter. In, ‘The Importance of the Family,’ Goldberg argues that the family is the State’s biggest competitor and on the political level, Democratic political success is dependent on a disintegrating family unit.

No links post could be complete without something from Mark Steyn. In ‘Letting the IRS Get Away with it,’ Steyn points out one of the more troubling aspects of the IRS scandal; the release of donor lists of 501(c)3 organizations in order for leftwing activist groups to go after the donors personally. It’s a chilling free speech issue.

And just for fun, a blog recently posted an old Bob Newhart classic bit, ‘The Driving Instructor.’ Comedy is one of those things that its practitioners can grow out of, either because they’ve worn out their shtick, they’re no longer creative enough to produce new material, or they just get too old period. In the case of Bob Newhart, based on his recent appearances on ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ he is just as good now as he was over 50 years ago. In Newhart’s case, his shtick is his delivery. No other comedian has mastered the art of deadpan delivery as Newhart has.

The Cochran Mississippi Republican primary victory is a week old and almost everything that could be written about has been written. It was eye opening in several ways. I have to say as a tactic, going after Democratic Black voters to vote in the Republican primary, was a brilliant one. It’s probably one of the most original campaign tactics I’ve heard of in years.

But that shows the depths of the hatred that the Establishment Republicans have for the Tea Party. This seat wasn’t in danger of going Democrat if McDaniel won, but the establishment so didn’t want another Tea Party candidate in office that they would rather smear their own base as racist and take a chance that the seat would flip to Democrats after these sorts of tactics. Think about that. The national party would rather a safe senate seat go to the other party than to the Tea Party!

Republicans are not usually this dirty towards Democrats. Can you imagine Republicans sending out defamatory fliers like this out on a Democratic candidate?

Considering the dirty pool involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if a fair amount of Tea Party votes stayed home in November, putting the seat at risk. But that was a risk the establishment was more than willing to take.

But the race was revealing in another way that I have not seen remarked on much since last week. I often debate and view political debates online and a consistent charge from the right is that the Democrats win by promising “free stuff.” This is of course highly insulting to Democrats since they think voters are attracted to the great ideas of the Democrats, not mere voter bribery, but in this case for the runoff, Cochran ran as the guy who could bring home the bacon and McDaniel would cut spending (insert shocked moan of the crowd here), yes cut it! Promising to cut spending is usually one of those things that goes over well in a Republican primary or runoff, but in this case Cochran bet correctly that the new voters he was bringing in wouldn’t find that an attractive policy. So in the war between “free stuff” and fiscal discipline, free stuff won hands down.

Normally I would at least enjoy the comfort at having been proven correct on many Democratic voters’ intentions, but it’s a rather sad commentary that voter bribery can still sway enough votes to swing an election. And it’s dangerous for the future of the country. This runoff was a pretty good test case that free stuff is sweet candy and fiscal discipline is castor oil. But if I had my way, I would rather take the castor oil now than the chemotherapy later.